The Final Frontier : The Last Cycle
by WisdomOfCelestials
Summary: AU. Halo/Mass Effect Crossover, Combined Universes. Humanity has not met the council. Considerably buffed Humanity. Buffed Reapers. Several OCs
1. Codex

**Yeah, Hi. This is going to be a Mass Effect alternate history fanfic along with a fusion with Halo. It's not exactly a Humanity, Yeah! Story but I have buffed humanity, considerably. This is indeed a Halo Crossover, but there's a lack of several main Halo plot elements, that's why I'm classifying this under Mass Effect Fanfics. To the fans of my other story The Return of Big Boss, DON'T PANIC, it will probably get more frequent updates than this story. So Yeah, here's the Codex part of The Final Frontier: The Last Cycle. I do not own Halo or Mass Effect or their universes but all original content is mine.**

 **UNSC Level 3 Database**

 **Operator: UNSC 7th Generation Smart AI: Nicobar, Europa Naval Academy Historian.**

 ** _A Brief History:_**

 **2046:** The Megacorporations are born. A rapid takeover of the market by certain players occurs. The company Axis International is now in control of the whole of the defence industry with everything from firearm production to the aerospace industry under their control. Their CEO, {Redacted} brings about a revolution in warfare with successfully created coil guns and revolutionary advances in Heavy Armour production. The Megacorporation BoraX takes control of the private market of outer space exploration and convinces the governments of the USA, the EU (which has unified into one body) and the rest of the world to convert their space agencies into one joint coalition with them.

 **2048:** The private military contractor MSF is created around this time by an unknown entity. It is rumoured to be owned by Axis International. The scientists Shaw and Fujikawa successfully create the first working model of an FTL-drive termed by them as Slipspace. It increases the morale of the entirety of the world when revealed to the public. The beginning of the terraforming of Mars by the Vishnu-Johnson Corp and various governments has begun. The governments of the world agree to sign a contract between them and all the Megacorporations. The signing of the World Government Act, 2048 begins.

 **2063:** All the world's countries have combined to form a single coalition. The Unification Wars of the Middle East and Southeast Asia break out in February but are suppressed by August 26th. A new alloy termed as Titanium A2 is created by the joint venture of BoraX, Axis International, Vishnu-Johnson Corp and the efforts of the celebrated scientists Shaw and Fujikawa. It has innumerable uses from usage in toothbrushes to the latest Heavy Armour.

 **2072:** The owners and founders of the Megacorps and Shaw and Fujikawa are going on a publicly televised journey to Venus in the first Space Vehicle of the UEG: **The Shadow**. The UEG had agreed not to place any crew as they indeed believed that the founders deserved the honour of using the vehicle. This happy journey was not to last as all of the passengers died as their ship crashed on Venus. According to various sensor instruments which were still transmitting data to ground stations for a period of 15 seconds an unknown gas had fried the experimental Deuterium energy core causing the destruction of **The Shadow**. The entire world mourned the loss of these scientists who had pushed for several new frontiers in the development of the Human Civilization. The UEG signed the Venus Accord, 2072 which termed Venus too dangerous to land on and kept it off limits as a memorial of sorts.

 **2096:** The terraforming of Mars is complete and 6 billion humans migrated to move to this other planet. The UEG signs an accord to change its name to the UHG (United Human Government). The first Phoenix Class Colony ship capable of carrying a million people is sent through FTL to colonize Alpha Centauri. Reserves of an unknown form of Titanium are discovered and synthetization of this is attempted resulting in creation of Titanium A3 which quickly replaces its predecessor A2.

 **2115:** Humanity has colonized all planets in an 8 light year radius. The first Helical Railguns are created by Axis International and BoraX capable of dealing structural damage equivalent to 500 kilotons of TNT. The First Smart AI is created. The first 10 ODP's are commissioned

 **2265:** Advancements in human medical technology by Vishnu-Johnson results in the average human lifespan to be 175 years. Human territory is now a 76 light year area with 256 habitable planets and more non habitable. The UNSC has 467 ships in its fleet with 150 being heavy cruisers stretching 2 km in length.

 **Earth was abandoned during 2262-2312 apart from certain Highlands due to restructuring of the planet to fix problems caused by global warming. This restructuring was successful.**

 **2341:** Human territory is now an area of 250 light years with Humans finally reaching the 1 trillion population mark. The human capital has been moved from Earth to Reach with Earth capable of taking over the burden if Reach falls. The UNSC currently has 1200 ships with 430 being Heavy cruisers or destroyers or carriers. The human lifespan is now theoretically 675 years which for unknown reasons is not surpassable as was found out in various aging experiments.

 **2349:** Terrence Hood is born. Ship-based helical railguns are now capable of dealing 10 MT worth of explosive damage. The Orion Program is initiated.

 **2399:** The first Major Insurrection Naval Asset Accumulation occurs in the Euros systems. Captain Terrence Hood, commander of the 5th Heavy patrol fleet destroys the Insurrectionist fleet only with his own battlegroup despite being outnumbered by a ratio of 30:1. He is promoted to Admiral and due to his other acts of valour over the next 5 years he is made the head of the UNSC answerable only to the president and the prime minister of the UHG. The SPARTAN-II program is initiated.

 **2415:** The Counterstrike Program also called the Spartan-3 program is initiated.

 **2431:** An old Axis international base is discovered below Point Nemo containing vast reserves of an unknown alloy of Titanium approximately 6137% stronger than Titanium A3. It is termed Titanium A5 and is used for the construction of Atlas station which is made the location of the UHG government. The first 5 Infinity-class Super Carriers, stretching 6.5 kilometres are commissioned. Charles Hackett is born. Thomas Lasky is born. The N7 program for ONI is initiated.

 **2473:** The 3rd Major Insurrection Naval Asset Accumulation occurs but is quickly destroyed in the Notaru System it had a presence in by Captain Thomas Lasky who is promoted to Admiral and given command of the first Science Class Vessel: **Shaw**. The 3rd Insurrection also had a flotilla of older Heavy cruisers in the neighbouring Dwemer System which was destroyed by Captain Charles Hackett who was also promoted to Admiral and later given command of The **Fujikawa.** Two other Science Class Vessels are created: **Fujikawa** and **Ethereal**. The UHG stops the production of Infinity class super carriers after 25 are created. The total amount of ships under the UNSC are 43000 with 10000 being Heavy cruisers or higher. The human population is currently 3 trillion.

 **2499:** The total amount of naval vessels under the UNSC is 56000 with 22000 being heavy cruiser or higher. Tritium-Deuterium Energy cores are perfected. Spacial anomalies are observed just out of human space by scanners.

 ** _A simplified index of Humanity's Progress:_**

 **Planets: Humanity has colonized approximately 1571 planets but there are several more which are uninhabited but capable of supporting life and zounds of planets used exclusively for industrial purposes. Analytical Mainframes say that we would have colonized all of them in our space, provided we do not expand by 2813.**

 **Earth: The most populous planet in UHG space is Earth. It is our former capital and our homeworld. It is also the best defended apart from Reach which is equally well defended. It is home to 31 billion humans. It is a Tier-1 planet and therefore has the Home Fleet defending it.**

 **Mars: The second most populous planet in the entirety of UHG space is the red planet. It is also the primary shipbuilding planet for the UNSC. It is home to 29 billion humans. It is considered a landmark planet and a monument to the advancement of the human civilization. Considered Tier-1 due to the Home Fleet but only has the protection of the Home Fleet due to proximity to Earth.**

 **Alpha Centauri: The third most populous planet and also the first planet out of the Sol System to be colonized. It is regarded as the primary trading hub for the UHG and all market info flows from here. Home to 27 billion humans, Alpha Centauri is also a cultural world with ancient wonders carefully transported here. Everything from the Great Pyramids to the Taj Mahal to the Empire State Building has been relocated here. It is one of the cleanest planets in the entirety of the UHG due to its rigid and tough environmental laws. It is a Tier-2 planet.**

 **Reach: The most militarized planet of them all and the capital of the UHG, Reach is home to a population parts civilian and military. It is the 4th most populous planet and has a population of 26 billion humans. It is considered Tier-1 due to the Capital Fleet defending it.**

 **Europa System: Originally known as the TRAPPIST system, the Europa system is a rare anomaly with not one, not two but seven garden worlds. The very presence of this many garden worlds in one solar system has broken several older mainframes as they tried to calculate the odds of the existence of such a system. Each planet approximately has a population of 10 billion humans. It is considered a Tier-1 system due to the inability of being able to classify the planets as each one of them has an individual fleet when counted cumulatively is the size of the Home Fleet and the Capital Fleet combined.**

 **Helical Railguns: They are multi-turn railguns that reduce rail and brush current by a factor equal to the number of turns. Two rails are surrounded by a helical barrel and the projectile or re-usable carrier is also helical. The projectile is energized continuously by two brushes sliding along the rails, and two or more additional brushes on the projectile serve to energize and commute several windings of the helical barrel direction in front of and/or behind the projectile. The helical railgun is a cross between a railgun and a coilgun. Each one is the main armament of any ship with at least two on any given ship, including frigates. Capable of anywhere from 10 megaton minimum to a single Teraton (on ODPs) it is rightfully classified as the main armament of a UNSC ship.**

 **ODP: Orbital Defence Platforms are the term given to the space fixtures which float around any given planet to defend against invading fleets. They're the most powerful of any railguns with only the Jormungard Cannons of the Science ships being equivalent to them and the Atlas HR being more powerful.**

 **Buddha Class shields: The classic energy shield on every single UNSC ship, it projects a tesla arc to destroy incoming projectiles. As you can imagine, this isn't really that effective and is only used in last resort cases.**

 **Plasma shields: These shield fit the true definition of energy shields. These are plasma barriers which goo-ify incoming projectiles and are always up. They operate on an integrity basis and too much incoming fire will make them shut down. This results in a recharge mode which would require the Captain of the ship to divert the secondary engines to recharge them. They are the standard for every ship.**

 **Slipspace shields: The finally conceived idea of using Slipspace energy distortions to just absorb any form of incoming damage is this. Incorporated only in the Infinity class Super Carriers and the Science class vehicles, it is never the less 356% more effective than the nearest Plasma shield. It generates several tiny slipspace ruptures which absorb incoming fire from an area hundreds of times larger than them due to their immense attractive force.**

 ***Note: This is a completely alternate universe, I'm altering names, types, defensive abilities, armour structures, armaments, etc.***

 **Prowlers: Small in number, covered with 3rd generation ablative coating and distorted matter paint, small in size, outfitted with thermal dispersers, insert pods and more silenced weapons then those possessed by a professional hitman, these ships are meant for deep insertions and Tactical Espionage Operations. These have less than average stopping power in their silenced Helical Railguns *** ** _Note: Silenced refers to the fact that the projectile is undetectable through any sensor through a combination of anti-radar plasma coating but also several other factors which are classified under OGI sector 3.*_** **but make up for it with their planet shattering NOVA bomb arsenal. General sizes range from 100 metres to 600 metres. Only Gorgon classes exist, though rumours of a new class termed {REDACTED} are in the offing.**

 **Frigates: The most numerous in number and also regarded as the weakest of all the UHG ship classes, the Frigates are meant for run and gun operations and missile blitzkriegs. Sizes vary from 700 metres to 1 kilometre. Frigates are also used for diverting enemy fire from some of the more hard-hitting ships. The Classes of this type are: Advent, Glory, Halcyon and Archangel. The Advent class is the least armoured but with the most Archer and Jericho Missiles out of all 4, The Glory is the speediest, The Halcyon is the best armoured and the Archangel is the most heavily armed in terms of Helical Railgun capabilities.**

 **Light Cruisers: More resilient than frigates, less durable than their heavy counterparts and meant to deliver beatings, the cruisers are the ships that every graduate freshly released from the Naval Academies aspires to become a captain of. Cruisers have moderate missile numbers but make up for that deficiency with much stronger Helical Railguns and higher manoeuvrability than their heavy counterparts. Sizes range from 1 kilometre to 2 kilometres. Classes are: Prometheus, Kronos, Hyperion and Iapetus. Prometheus classes are an older design, dating back to 2380, but get the job done and are still kept in service. Kronos classes are the newest and also the fastest, known to outrun even Archangel Frigates. Hyperion classes are rare in the Navy due to their unique design: The Hyperion is basically a gigantic energy weapon with thrusters attached to it; it also has a very minimal crew and is still an experimental design. The Iapetus is the most resilient of all Light Cruisers but still agile enough not to be classified a Heavy Cruiser.**

 **Heavy Cruisers: With 7th Gen Shields and extremely thick armour, these behemoths are meant to take the most vicious beatings. Even though they deal lesser damage compared to their Light counterparts, they are meant to be a damage sponge and do their job admirably. They range from 2 kilometres to 3.5 kilometres in size. They are generally given in command to experienced Captains who have served for at least 10 years or more. There are only 3 classes of this kind of ship: The Marathon Super-Heavy Class, Valiant Mega Heavy class and Dauntless Ultra-Heavy Class. The Marathon has a unique Honeycomb armour design which allows it to take significantly more energy fire than any other cruiser. The Valiant classes have the thickest armour ever, period. Their armour plating is an astounding 35 metres thick, which also makes them the slowest of any class of ship, even Atlas Station is known to turn faster but this results in a ship which can be free-floating in the middle of 3 NOVA bomb explosions with only minor structural damage. Dauntless class ships are a newer design, they have 8th gen experimental shields and have a series-8 MAC but less armour than other Heavy Cruisers which also results in them being a bit more speedy.**

 **Carriers: These ships range from 3.5 km to an astounding 5 km in length. Though just as big as Heavy Cruisers, their bulk is meant for a completely different purpose: The release of droves and droves and zounds of fighters and rapid repair craft. They may have pathetic armour but their shielding is the strongest this side of a Super Carrier. There are 3 types: Continental Class, Planetoid Class and Glacier Class. The Continental Class is the smallest of all 3 types but carry significantly more Infantry and Heavy Armour than either of its brethren. The Planetoid Class is the largest of all 3 and is meant to be used in extensive space dogfights with an astounding amount of RRCs and fighters greater in number than what an Infinity can carry. The Glacier Class can basically be termed as a bullet sponge, a newer design, equipped with Experimental 8th Gen Plasma shielding and two Slipspace Shield Layers; it has one of the most powerful shields ever, surpassed only by an Argent Class or the Science Class Vessels. It also has thousands of Projectile Interceptors and 3 Experimental Assault Magnetic Trajectory Manipulators.**

 **Super Carrier: Only the Infinity class and the Argent Class fit this description. With Series-7 HRs this ship can turn a planet into nothing but molten slag all by itself in approximately 25 hours. It also has 10 regular HRs. Each Infinity carries upto 35000 of our best and brightest but the original can carry 38000 of our troops. With very thick armour and the latest Slipspace shields, these hulking monstrosities can change the course of any battle. Only 25 currently exist. They are all 8.5 kilometres in length with only the original Infinity at 9 kilometres in length. The Argent Class is much the same but is 12 km long and has an ODP cannon instead of series-8s. Only 1 exists. It possesses the ability to contain 56000 of our troops.**

 **Science Class Vessels: These ships are without a doubt our finest achievement. Each one of them contains a hundred and fifty thousand of our best and brightest. They contain Jormungard Cannons which are capable of outright shattering a planet. There are only 3 in existence. Each one is 36 kilometre in length, that's 1/4th the size of Atlas Station, the location of our government. The 3 ships of this class are: The Shaw, The Fujikawa and The Ethereal. The Shaw is captained by Admiral Thomas Lasky, The Fujikawa by Commander Charles Hackett and the Ethereal by Captain Rachana M. The Shaw is attached to the Home Fleet; The Fujikawa to the Capital Fleet and The Ethereal to the 1st Expeditionary Fleet. Each Science class Vessel contains an Infinity class Super Carrier inside it.**

 **Atlas Station: It is the home of the UHG senate, both of the parliamentary houses, NAVSPECWAR, High Com, Fleet Com, OGI HQ and other governmental office headquarters. It is constructed entirely from Titanium A5, the rarest material and the strongest ever created by man, though the process to create it was lost with the founder of Axis International. It stretches an impressive 144 km and is the largest artificial body we have created. The energy taken to power the station for a year would be enough to power a planet like Reach for a week. This may not seem like much, but it is relatively way too power hungry. It contains two experimental HRs which are each capable of shattering roughly two planets in one shot. That equals to 4 planets shattered if both are fired at the same time.**

 **It is shaped like an old-world Lotus with 10 petals and a central bud. 2 of those petals are curled up and are actually the experimental HRs. 4 of the petals house the military while the other 4 are occupied by civilian officials. The central bud standing at 12 km tall is the place where all of the governmental agencies are physically present. When an AMTM (Advanced Magnetic Trajectory Manipulation) test was used to test the station's resilience with a round from its own HR, the experimental HR round did not even provide a suitable surface scar, let alone damage the integrity of the station. This makes the rest of the UNSC wonder, what exactly is Titanium A5 if it made the station capable of not even undergoing minute duress when fired upon by rounds collectively capable of destroying 4 planets.**

 **Slipspace: Slipstream space (Slipspace for short) otherwise known as Shaw-Fujikawa space or subspace by the United Nations Space Command is a collective term for the eleven non-visible infinitesimal dimensions used for faster-than-light travel. Making a transition from one place to another via slipspace is known as a "slip" or "jump.. Further knowledge about Slipspace can be found in the Digi-Book: The Final Frontier: A New Chapter by Tobias Shaw and Wallace Fujikawa. The fastest Slipspace drive equipped on the Science class Vessels is capable of moving 18000 LY a day before recharge.**

 **Human Space: Human space is a quadrant which occupies an area of 1759 LY. We have occupied most of the Orion Arm and neighbouring space but still have to run into any intelligent lifeforms. It makes us wonder if we truly are alone in the galaxy.**

 **Lord Terrence Hood, Grand Admiral: Lord Terrence Hood was born in 2349 on the planet of Europa-1. He showed a remarkable proficiency in terms of battle tactics since an early age and was enrolled in the Naval Academy at the age of 21. He was selected to be the commander of the 5th heavy patrol fleet. For 29 years, he served admirably without any incident before the Euros massacre. When the entirety of the Euros system went dark in 2399, Lord Hood was sent to investigate, what he found was a coalition of 300 ships part of a movement termed the Insurrection. This enemy fleet was led by Ex-Admiral Vladimir Kamarov who had been dishonourably discharged the previous year for running a secret drug-distribution sub-committee.**

 **Lord Hood only had 10 heavy cruisers, which were 10 years old and due for retrofitting while Vladimir's fleet had the latest tech and outnumbered him by a ratio of 30:1. Never one to admit defeat, he drove the entire enemy fleet nuts with his highly unorthodox tactics and won. He lost six of his ships but the enemy fleet was completely obliterated. He received the Star of Terra, a Presidential Unit Citation and an Exceptional Naval Commander Badge for his magnificent actions, and was made an Admiral. Over the next 5 years, he proved himself as an excellent tactician in the battles of the 2nd MINAA and was made the head of the UNSC with the position of Grand Admiral. He is currently a hundred and fifty years old.**

 **Admiral Thomas Lasky: Admiral Thomas Lasky was born in 2431 on the planet Reach. Showing remarkable intelligence since a very young age, he enrolled in the 2nd Naval Academy and passed out with flying colours. He was a good friend of Charles Hackett since a very young age. He was made the captain of the Heavy Cruiser: Bespin. When the Notary system went dark, he was dispatched to investigate what had occurred. What he found was the 3rd Major Insurrection Naval Asset Accumulation (MINAA). A total fleet of 76 heavy cruisers was discovered in the system. He destroyed 66 of them with the Bespin alone. When he was about to be overwhelmed, by sheer coincidence, his lifelong friend Admiral Hackett's Heavy Cruiser: The Century Falcon arrived and both of the ships destroyed the remains of the Insurrection. Thomas Lasky was made captain of the first Infinity class Super Carrier: Infinity. He was later promoted to Admiralty and made the captain of The Shaw. He retained the Infinity in the hanger of The Shaw. He is attached to the Home Fleet.**

 **Admiral Charles Hackett: Admiral Charles Hackett was born in 2431 on the planet Reach. From a very young age, he was a good friend of Thomas Lasky. He enrolled in the Naval Academy and passed out at the same time as his friend with a final score exactly the same as his friend's. He was made the captain of the Heavy Cruiser: The Century Falcon. When the Dwemer system went dark, he was dispatched to investigate what had occurred. What he found was an Insurrection fleet of 40 vessels which he destroyed alone. He then quickly jumped to the Notary system when he received a call for reinforcements and destroyed the remnants of the Insurrection in this system which were about to overwhelm by all manner of coincidences, his old friend, Thomas Lasky. He was made the captain of the 2nd Infinity class Super Carrier: The Eternity. He was later promoted to Admiralty and was made the captain of The Fujikawa. He retained the Eternity in the Hanger of the Fujikawa. He is attached to the Capital Fleet.**

 **Captain Anira: Born on 2469 on the planet Earth, Captain Anira joined the 1st Naval Academy at the age of 18 and passed with the single highest marks ever. She was taken under the wing of Lord Hood who touted her as his future successor. Lord Hood himself said the following: "She's capable of doing things with a ship that I've never even dreamt of." The fact that arguably Humanity's greatest tactician could not think of the possibility of such ideas shows her merit. She was made the Captain of the only Argent Class Super Carrier: The Argent and was later made the Captain of The Ethereal with the insistence of Lord Hood. She retained the Argent Class Super Carrier as one of her escort ships.**

 **Axis 360-420 Light Combat Platform 'Stryker': The Stryker is the standard armoured vehicle used by all three branches of the UNSC. It is equipped with a 6 inch-thick Titanium A3 covering. Weapons capable of being equipped are: A 60mm Anti-Infantry rapid fire coilgun, a 120mm Hi-Ex Battlefield Magnetic Accelerator, a 314mm Anti-Armour Magnetic Accelerator, and an AA platform. The standard models are equipped with a magnetic levitator but some old fashioned troops modify it to have wheels.**

 **Axis 20-69 Light Troop Transport 'Mongoose': The Mongoose is a lightly armoured, extremely fast Troop Transport capable of carrying 1 Spartan or 2 regular troopers. It is vulnerable to every sort of weaponry but makes up for it with the same blisteringly fast speed mentioned earlier. It is equipped with old fashioned A3 equipped wheels but can also be modified to magnetically levitate.**

 **Axis 4147-666 Ultra-Heavy Combat Platform 'Mammoth': It makes those who have never seen a mammoth wonder: There's a light combat platform but there isn't a heavy one, the UNSC jumps directly to Ultra-Heavy. But this disparity is soon to be overcome due to imminent field test of the Heavy Combat Platform {REDACTED}.Nearly 70 meters in length, the Mammoth is a six-wheeled seigeworks vehicle that fulfils the dual roles of anti-aircraft and anti-warship weapons platform; it is designed for the elimination of hostile vessels, weapons, and fortifications in terrestrial and suborbital positions. It has the only land vehicle based Helical Railgun and its railgun is rated strong enough to take out a Cruiser in a single shot.** **The Mammoth has six ultra-heavy duty wheels, cargo doors at both ends for the deployment of vehicles, and sports two winches among other practical loops and hooks on its front for multiple uses. The Mammoth is also four stories tall; the lowest level is used as a vehicle garage, while the third level is where the command centre of the vehicle is located, and the second level is the outer deck and the location of the smaller rapid-fire railguns and side-mounted rocket turrets while the fourth level consists mainly of the railgun and recoil dampeners for the railgun.**

 **UNSCM12Force Application Vehicle (FAV) 'Warthog':** **The M12 is a huge, unwieldy, difficult to steer vehicle—until a user learns how to drive it properly. With proper application of the hand, or "e-brake" the M12 can actually turn on a dime. Massive disc brakes and its automatic braking systems allow the vehicle to come to a near immediate, but controlled stop should the driver be ejected, or choose to leave the vehicle. The Warthog's tires have moved away from previous inert-gas pocket inflation with far more resilient and superior burst-proof single unit nanotube skeletons. They provide the buoyancy and ride of gas-pocket tires, but are almost indestructible, allowing the M12 to easily roll through situations that would leave other vehicles disabled and vulnerable. The relatively massive tires are a joint project between Vishnu-Johnson and the AFEC (Armed Forces Engineering Corps).**

 **It is capable of traveling 2800 kilometres on a full tank of its hydrogen fuel. The M12's design places it into the jeep family of vehicles; it has no doors and has a total seating of two or three in the base model. The M12's description as a "force application vehicle" is spectacularly accurate; the M12 has both offensive and defensive capabilities, as well as Intel gathering and supply transport and practically any other task that can be accomplished by a wheeled vehicle. The M12 can be configured to become a troop carrier, armament carrier, ambulance, reconnaissance vehicle, recovery vehicle or communications vehicle. All M12-based vehicles are designed to travel both on and off-road, in all weather conditions.**

 **Broadsword: TheF-41 Exoatmospheric Multirole Strike Fighter, also known as the Broadsword, is a versatile and well-armed A/X strike fighter typically used to engage space craft of equal or superior weapon capabilities and evasive flight capabilities in low to zero gravity conditions. It is manufactured by Axis International. It is also rated 8/10 for in-atmo dogfighting missions. It is capable of achieving MACH 18 in empty space. It carries suitably heavy AN-7 missiles which when in clusters of 17 or more are capable of taking down Light Cruisers without Shields. It has several configuration modules to customize it for the battle it is needed for.**

 **Shortsword: The R-24 Fighter Interceptor is a flying vehicle created for the sole purpose of intercepting fighter craft and preventing aerial bombardment. It disables aircraft with its short range large radius EMP missiles and destroys launched payloads with its Jericho Missile Interceptor Torpedoes. Works on the basic principle of the early 22nd century style meteoric drop infiltrator VTOL planes. Also had an alternate module where it becomes a heavy duty assault support aircraft and can provide aerial support based on target identification.**

 **UNSCM808B Main Battle Tank 'Scorpion': TheM808B Main Battle Tank, commonly known as the Scorpion, is the most common armoured fighting vehicle employed by the UNSC. It is used in operations requiring heavy firepower or an anti-vehicular platform. Combining firepower, resilience and mobility, the Scorpion has proven itself formidable and earned the respect of friend and foe alike.** **The Scorpion represents the best possible balance between mobility and firepower. Indeed the vehicle's prominence among the UNSC armed forces is due to its low production cost, transportability, and overall firepower. Ceramic-Titanium A3 armouring makes it almost invulnerable to small-arms fire and easily shrugs off normal helical weapons, while anti-mine software and electronics provide additional protection. The tank also features a small crew size, one operator and up to four passengers on the treads.**

 **The Scorpion's main weapon, mounted on a 360° rotating turret, is theM512 Smooth Bore High Velocity Cannon which fires 230 mm tungsten shells. Though this weapon can have difficulty penetrating the armour of some light cruisers, it is capable of disintegrating most targets in a single shot or gutting a Stryker in a single shot, depending on where the shots hit relative to the target's hull. For additional offensive power some Scorpions will instead mount a 305mm mass accelerator 247T Medium Machine Gun serves as the tank's secondary weapon, delivering 14.68mm armour-piercing rounds with speed and thoroughness. It is mounted co-axially.**

 **NOVA Bomb: The NOVA Bomb is a cluster of nine nuclear fusion warheads encased in a lithium triteride case. When the warheads are activated, the lithium triteride shell focuses the blast in upon itself, multiplying the destructive power a hundredfold. This gives the NOVA Bomb an unprecedented payload for its size. Its capability to destroy a planet has earned it the nickname the "Planet-Killer" and more informally "The God Reaper". It should be noted that on the one recorded event in 2445 when a NOVA Bomb was detonated by a fleet that was on the other side of the system, close to the planet Exalt, it scorched the planet's surface due to it propagating a high concentration of thermal energy inside the planet's atmosphere; it also shattered 4 nearby moons. Any further detailed analysis on the full power of this bomb has yet to be revealed by ONI.**

 **Shreyaon HS: The man, the myth, the legend. Being the last man from the 21st century is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing as he's seen more reality-changing discoveries than any other Human, a curse as his pseudo-popularity results in him being swarmed by the paparazzi during every second of his shore leave not to mention the psychological effects such a status brings. A master in over a hundred and fifty martial arts and a part of an early Vishnu-Johnson experiment, the only one of its kind which left him with what is quite possible the only lifespan which will never end of natural causes. His first military stint in the Indian Army in the year of 2036 as a Field Medic lasted 6 months before he was discharged for disobeying his superior's orders and rescuing a child trapped in a hut being shelled by Insurgents. He then seeked a job as the Head of a Special Department of Diagnostics throughout various hospitals before finally being offered the position in a European Hospital.**

 **During his stint as the Head of Diagnostics, any patients sent to him had a survival rate of 98.9%, phenomenally high for the time. He joined MSF in 2047 and was regarded as one of their best Espionage Operators apart from their leader {REDACTED}. He left MSF in 2102, and joined the UNSC navy and has been steadily showing his mettle ever since. He underwent much the same processes as the rest of Team Metal relatively later compared to them, in 2485 rather than 2452. A side effect of the genetic experiment has given him an exceptional regeneration factor. To test the limits of this regeneration, he volunteered to be placed on Exalt's moon. This was before him receiving Titanium A5 replacements for the skeletal system. A Reinforced Titanium A3 covered camera was placed to capture what exactly would happen to a human body subjected to a NOVA bomb and observed that Shreyaon was blown into what was hundreds of thousands of microscopic pieces from which he indeed reformed.**

 ***Note: To test his regeneration, not the power of a NOVA bomb***

 **It was found that he did not infact possess an ability to breathe in space therefore it was required for the Spartan-II standby team to quickly retrieve him from the dead space he was in. This incident is the reason he is called the Survivor of the Moon of Shattered Glass. He is also a survivor of the Disastrous Operation Snow Storm. Shreyaon, with nothing but a standard issue Magnum Pistol cleared the modern UNSC time trial anti-Insurrection Course in a time of 6 seconds. He is known to react to ongoing events in a matter of Svedbergs and his reflexive actions take place in the units of time** **10** **−14.** **He took part alone in a training exercise against the Spartan-IIs termed Operation God Killer. He managed to eliminate nearly all of them before being out-maneuvered by Blue Team when he was exhausted after having just eliminated the 30 other Spartans remaining in the Training Exercise.**

 **{Psychological Status: Maybe traumatised by being the solitary survivor of his time; has skilfully passed all psychological tests to ensure his mental stability. His action on Exalt's moon may show a suicidal tendency or it could be just a way for him to undergo thrill. The ability which gives him his regeneration also seems to be unrepeatable in genetic experiments based on experiments of OGI sector 7. The best OGI-7 was able to come up with through an examination of his cells was a factor of increased healing of 62% for SPARTAN 1s, 145% for SPARTAN-IIs and 86% for SPARTAN-IIIs apart from NOBLE team. Team Metal's healing rate is irrelevant as they are mostly cybernetic.}**

 **Level 7 Files**

 **Scanning Identity….. Welcome, Admiral Preston Cole.**

 **Orion Program: The ORION Project was an Office of Naval Intelligence and Colonial Military Authority super-soldier program aimed at security and counter-insurgency operations. It was originally launched in the 23rd century, but was deemed too cost ineffective. A later relaunch occurred during the Insurrection Mobilization. Though effective, it eventually met a similar fate to the original program.**

 **Later, following the success of Doctor Halsey's SPARTAN-IIs, the remaining ORIONs became colloquially named as SPARTAN-Is, and this name took root to the extent that ORIONs such as James Buccington referred to themselves as SPARTANs. The ORION Project itself was also retroactively dubbed the SPARTAN-I Program, and the children of the members of the ORION Project were sometimes calledSPARTAN-1. ORION Project was a Special Operations Force in the UNSC. Administratively, the ORION project was under the control of OGI Sector-7, Special Projects. To an extent they were replaced by N7 and Counterstrike.**

 **Spartan-II Program: In the years following the deactivation of the Orion Program in 2379, Insurrectionist Activity in a few Outer Colonies led to a large amount of war orphans. These specific Outer Colonies were on the very edge of Human Space and simply did not have enough of a Military Presence to stop this slaughter. Due to the increase in Insurrectionist activity and the limited capability of the military in these outlier planets, Doctor Catherine Halsey conceived the Spartan-II program with the following goals in mind:** **The first was to create a group of elite soldiers meant to subdue insurrections in their infancy, without substantial military casualties. The second goal was to minimize civilian casualties and avert civil war. The third goal was to substantially reduce the cost of conventional means of pacification.**

 **The age group of candidates selected for the program was widely regarded as an unethical choice due to them primarily being children in the Age group of 6 years old, but the Upper Echelons of the military fast-stamped it in hope for a quick solution for Insurrectionist activity. The selected children showcased an improved mental and physical capacity greatly exceeding their peers. The total number of candidates was whittled down from three hundred thousand to 300. The children were stolen from their parents and replaced with clones, which would only have a half-life which was still extremely long compared to 21st century human lifespans. The children were taught Military Values and Skills from the very beginning of their kidnap, eventually leading to a skill-group of what would now be regarded as ODST level at a young age of 10.**

 **They were genetically augmented in every way making them far superior to any regular human who all underwent basic genetic upliftment. Every single one stood at a height of 7 and half feet with a few exceptions that were taller. The Spartans were divided into two companies: Alpha and Omega each consisting of a hundred and fifty members. The Companies were further split apart to fire teams of 6 members each resulting in a grand total of 50 fire teams. On their first deployment they crushed the entirety of the 1st and 2nd armies of the Insurrection who were entrenched on Luthien, The garden moon of Palium without a single casualty. An entirety of 78 thousand Insurrectionist Troops was slaughtered on that day. Spartan Fire teams of Alpha Company are given call signs based on colours while Omega gets call signs based on materials. The teams with the highest kill ratio in positions of one, two and three were: Blue Team, Red Team and Team Tungsten. Every single Spartan shares an irreplaceable bond with each other and regard each other as brothers and sisters.**

 **Counterstrike (Spartan-III Program): While the Spartan-II program was regarded as effective, there were too few of them to effectively take on all of the zounds of the Insurrection. This was where the Counterstrike program came in. Rather than selecting children as candidates, the Spartan-III program's candidates primarily consisted of the best squads the ODST's, Marines and N7 have to offer. They undergo similar genetic restructuring but not quite to the level of Spartan-IIs as they do not possess the same genetic requirements. Not quite as effective as the Spartan-IIs or quite as fast or as strong with the notable exception of two teams, Team Metal and NOBLE Team but still heads and heels above even the most exceptionally skilled ODSTs, they get the job done, and are significantly more numerous than Spartan-IIs numbering in at the latest count, to be at least over 9000 in number.**

 **NOBLE Team: Noble Team was an exception to the type of selection of candidates. The upper echelons wanted a specialized team, deep insertion, completely cold blooded killers, especially those who had deep seated desires for revenge against the Insurrection. For this purpose, candidates who had undergone traumatizing experiences under Insurrection controlled planets were specially chosen. Given the same genetic enhancements as the Spartan-IIs due to them also possessing the required genetic structures, the final six operators of NOBLE Team were at the least just as effective as their predecessors but were also regarded as significantly more well versed in adaptability as they worked for months upon end with little UHG help in Insurrectionist Planets stationed far out of the normal area regarded as Human Space.**

 **Team Metal: This highly successful Counterstrike team maintain their abnormally high success rate due to its seven operators being more machine than human. They are some of the oldest soldiers in active duty in the entire army of the UHG. Every single one of their members was born before 2150 and had initially been kept alive due to black-ops gene therapies but later replaced almost every single part of their body with mechanical prosthetics. Every one of their bones is replaced with specially crafted Titanium A5 joints which perfectly resemble normal bones. This was made from the last reserves of Titanium A5 present in Human Hands, and makes their bones near unbreakable. Even their skin is made from Titanium A3 as there wasn't enough Titanium A5 for this purpose and even if we possessed a supply it would be impossible to craft it into such attenuated sheets. The Titanium A3 pseudo-skin perfectly replicates normal human skin, allowing the operators to function unperturbed. Their long experience is also reflected by their mastery of nearly every single martial art on earth, a nearly unparalleled skill with fire-arms both old and new and a professional atmosphere that other troops couldn't hope to replicate. They are regarded as the best soldiers the UHG have in hand, with the possible exception of Blue Team. Their leader, Shreyaon, no doubt the best soldier in the UNSC through terms of sheer experience is also a bit of a curiosity, being the only living member of the 21st century, having been born in 2002.**

 **N7: More of a ranking rather than an organisation the N7 is the highest rank awarded to members of the UNSC who willingly take part in the gruelling and tiring training of the N-school.** **The Interplanetary Combatives Academy, sometimes called "N-School" or "the villa," recruits officers from every branch of the UNSC's militaries to partake in gruelling courses at Vila Militar in Rio de Janeiro. Initially, candidates train for more than 20 hours per day, leading small combat teams through hostile terrain with little sleep or food.**

 **Trainees who do well are awarded an internal designation of N1 and are invited to return. Subsequent courses-N2 through N6-are often held off-planet and include instruction in zero-G combat, military free-fall (parachuting), jetpack flight, combat diving, combat instruction, linguistics, frontline trauma care, forensic science, spaghettification survival *** _The Black Hole sort_ *** *** ** _Note: This term does not imply that one can truly survive spaghettification, what it offers is a quick way out of the current situation if an N7 is ever sucked into a black hole. It is basically an instant-kill function in the N7 suit which stops all neural functions so that the person does not have to suffer that horrible phenomena while alive*_** **soft and hard interrogation forms, demolition training, artillery spotting, the ability to drive any vehicle at hand, emergency piloting , and dumb AI-tandem operations.**

 **The highest grade of training, N6, provides actual combat experience in conflict zones throughout human space which are mostly minor Insurrection uprisings (MIU). If the trainee survives these scenarios in "admirable and effective fashion," he or she finally receives the coveted N7** **designation. N7 is the only ICT designation that may be worn on field or dress uniforms.**

 **Although ICT qualification by itself does not guarantee higher rank, those officers who are able to complete the program are typically well suited to senior leadership positions.**


	2. Awakening

**Hey. It's been a long long time. Mostly because I've been struggling with a lot of problems, terrible problems. But I've been working on them and have made good progress. I don't want to bother you guys no more so here's the:**

 **Second Chapter, or First rather. It begins now.**

 **Bentheguy: One Word, Reapers. That should be enough.**

 **Anonymous: I understand what you're trying to say. But I know what I'm doing, I'm buffing the Reapers to what they should actually be, what a race which has harvested species for millions of years if not billions should be. Not the pansies they were in Mass Effect.**

 **CheesusChrist15: That's a lot of insight from a person on a story which possesses only one chapter. I assume you didn't even read the fact that I'm buffing reapers and as I mentioned above, turning them into what a billion year old 'harvester' species should be. But you can take yourself and your 'generic' insults and shove your holier than thou self into the Gravemind's overly large arse.**

 **Human Territory Border System X-01 'Horizon'**

 **Aboard The Shaw**

"So, Doctor Malashenko, what is so important about this frontier system that I and my patrol fleet were pulled out of Earth's defence and requisitioned here?"

"If you're worried about Earth's safety, the Ethereal's been pulled from free patrolling to fill in the void and guard Earth. The UNSC has about 57000 ships right? You're being unduly worried, comrade. The reason you've been pulled from Earth defence is due to what we found here in that icy moon of Planet 36-AR over there. What was a standard mining scan gave back the result of an unknown alien alloy crafted into a shape far too unique to be natural. We think it's an alien artefact."

Lasky's silence was not a sign of his piqued interest, he was thinking about the repercussions this find could cause onto human civilization. And more importantly, how advanced this alien civilization was and if they were overtly hostile, would the UNSC have the capability to take them down.

Malashenko, unaware of the Admiral's thoughts plowed on in his heavily accented English. "The main belief among the science team is that it's an artefact used to observe the growth of civilizations in the particular system it is deployed in. Other theories are that it's a superweapon of some sorts or a primitive two-way monolith for faster than light travel or even a shipyard of sorts which was abandoned due to the civilization falling apart."

Lasky said "You said it's buried in the centre of this moon? I don't like this one bit. It means that it's been gathering dust for thousands of years at the minimum, therefore if it was an observation pod, the makers would want it fully functional, and therefore we can either say that it fell into disrepair, the civilization couldn't afford running it anymore or they were exterminated by a superior civilization which was hostile." When Lasky was poised to continue his own postulation, he and the Doctor were interrupted by a ping from the on-ground scan team.

The on-site head of operations said "Sir, we've completed a thorough scanning of the object and it has a near railgun like shape. I don't think such a shape would be suitable for observation purposes. We're planting the INFERN charges right now, sir. We'll be exfilling from the moon in roughly 26 minutes."

Lasky was in a near stupor "You're already planning to blow it? This isn't safe. This railgun-shape revelation's shaked me, so it's gotta be a two-way teleportation device which just shoots the ship right? Or maybe even worse, a gigantic fucking gun. Either way it doesn't matter. What if the makers are still active but have forgotten the location of several of these monoliths and get pinged by this monolith suddenly getting reactivated? What if they send ships through? I don't care what you say Malashenko, I'm ordering my battle group to assume combat stations. We will not be firing first in the UHI's diplomatic interests, but if they make the slightest hostile move, we're taking down any ships that might come out with Jormungard cannons and blowing up that monolith with a NOVA bomb."

Malashenko raised his hands to placate the irate admiral. He said "You're jumping to conclusions far too early, Admiral. It might just be a superweapon of sorts. If so, we can strip it and reverse engineer the technology. And if it seems to auto activate and decide to fire upon our ships we'll just blow it up with a NOVA bomb like you suggested. However if your monolith theory is true, your suggested defence option seems a bit too….. Aggressive in diplomatic overtures doesn't it, aggressive squared if I may say so myself? We'll just go on with a normal by-the-book neutral-aggressive diplomatic stance. And all this is mere conjecture, my good man, your theory depends on there being hostile ships, even just the presence of ships beyond this structure and that is if this structure is a two way monolith."

Lasky was more than a bit miffed at his suggestion being outright dismissed. But the Doctor had OGI's backing which quite frankly tied him up; he could only follow the Doctor's suggestions for now. He said "I'm deploying all of my ships though, just in case." Seeing the Doctor's plan to object it, he quickly added "They'll just be deployed, not even at combat stations. There's nothing wrong with a bit of foresight now is there?"

The doctor conceded to Lasky and continued to observe the crew planting the INFERN charges on the moon. Lasky relayed the order to Roland, the shipboard AI "Roland, you overhead us didn't you, you cheeky little bastard. Get on with it. Deploy our Infinity, other ships in the Shaw, the ships in the Infinity and ask the other two Infinity's in our group to deploy their ships as well."

Roland, in his dapper aviator's uniform, nodded and said "Alright sir, now there's no need to call me a cheeky little bastard. It is my duty to keep this ship in optimal condition, and knowing everything that goes on in this ship serves to that purpose."

Lasky grumbled and turned back to the video screen. The crew video'd in "We're exfiltrating now; we'll be reaching the Shaw in roughly 16 sec."

Sure enough, 16 slow seconds later, the crew docked at one of the many docking stations on the Shaw. They were heading to their quarters for some rest after their gruelling work. Lasky received the news that all ships were deployed for a grand total of 95 ships including 3 Infinities, 45 Heavy Cruisers, 15 Carriers, 12 Cruisers, 16 Frigates, 4 Prowlers and their ace in the hole, the Shaw.

Lasky said "All our ships are deployed; you can give the order now, Doctor." He whispered to himself "Let's pray nothing goes wrong."

Malashenko nodded and gave the detonation order. The INFERN charges detonated resulting in the entire moon turning into a fireball in a matter of nanoseconds, melting all the Ice and incinerating the residual helium and hydrogen on its surface. As soon as the object emerged unscathed, it was a sight to behold indeed. Not to waste a moment, the crew of the Shaw immediately began scanning it thoroughly before even thinking of pinging it in hopes of a response.

It consisted of two approximately fifteen kilometre-long curved metal arms surrounding a set of revolving gyroscopic rings five-kilometres across. They contained a massive, blue-glowing core. Based on 1st set scans, it was surrounded by a quantum shield which locked the object in place at a subatomic level. It did not emit heat or radiation either, but the gravitational readings it was giving were off the charts for an object of its size. It didn't take an AI to deduce that this was probably due to the strange core whose reading and composition matched no element or engine used or known by humans.

Lasky was tensed, just waiting for the monolith/railgun to make a move. Malashenko was coolly leaning towards his chair while facing the object, waiting, watching, and wondering if the other entrance was still functional. After ten minutes of this uneasy stillness, the all-clear signal was passed throughout the fleet. Lasky was still on edge but his uneasiness had reduced quite a bit. Lasky inhaled air for 15 seconds before he managed to compose himself completely.

Lasky was also confused as to how such high gravitational readings could have been dampened by its exterior coverings.

Malashenko said "You know what must be done now, Admiral? We must send communication signals on all wavelengths to the object and try to decipher its true purpose."

Lasky waved him away and said "We'll do better than that. Roland!"

"Yes, sir?"

"Establish direct contact through your own processors, the job would be a hell of a lot faster with an AI at the helm trying to establish contact with it."

"On it sir."

 **In Roland's Mindspace.**

"Well, time for a test, old boy, let's see just how good an UNSC 7th Gen AI is at decrypting a completely foreign Alien language with no focal reference points and trying to find out the purpose of this 15-km railgun like thing."

It took exactly 3 seconds for Roland to decrypt the language the machine operated on. He was able to initiate a basic two-way conversation with it as it seemed to possess a severely dumb AI of sorts. "So, we come in peace alien railgun; now tell me your purpose!" Roland said in his best imitation of that pointy eared alien from Star Hike.

The machine responded with a beep which Roland took to be it processing his request and then said this in a heavily synthesized voice " _The purpose of this artificial construct, that is, a Mass Relay is for it to be used as a two way rapid transportation corridor between Star System CHA-80N, the system in which this entrance is and Star System ARC-1080, 1349 Light Years away. Mass relays function by creating a virtually mass-free 'corridor' of space-time between each other. This can propel a starship across enormous distances that would take centuries to traverse, even at FTL speeds. Before a vessel can travel, the relay must be given the amount of mass to transit by the ship's pilot before it is moved into the approach corridor. When a relay is activated, it aligns itself with the corresponding relay before propelling the ship across space. There are hundreds of Mass Relays across the galaxy."_

Roland proceeded to theorize the ramifications of this knowledge, its strategic implications and the inefficiencies of such a system. He then forwarded this to Lasky and Malashenko and proceeded to capture all intelligence on board the Relay's servers, boot the dumb AI out of its server, and delete all of its copies and replicate this process in its paired Relay, all in a matter of four picoseconds.

"These particular pair of Relays is now under UNSC control." He said to Lasky in form of a report.

Lasky nodded, not bothering to ask Roland how they had come to be under UNSC control, working with an AI does that to one, enables them to almost form an empathy bond and know each other better than they know themselves.

Malashenko nodded and said "Since there's no armada of laser-spewing, death-demanding, servitude-ordaining aliens spewing out of that relay now that we've activated it, I think it would be safe to say that the connected system is empty and bereft of alien presence, therefore we could send a drone through."

Lasky sighed; sometimes these scientists and their desire to push forward human development did not factor in all variables that might be present on the other side of a relay. The possibilities of what might lie on the other side presented themselves to Lasky in a seemingly infinite number of ways. One possibility was that there was a sentient species on a planet in the system ARC-1080 which were not advanced with spacecraft and might be equivalent to 21st century humans. Another one was that such a species might have advanced far enough and might have just discovered this relay and might be preparing to send a probe through. Another one was that the creators of this relay might have detected this sudden booting of the managing AI and had sent out a taskforce to detect what exactly was going on. Another was that this same taskforce's objective was to eradicate the people who no doubt in the creator's eyes would be 'usurpers' and take down their species. Like Lasky thought earlier, the probabilities were endless.

Malashenko said "Well, Admiral? When are we sending the probe through?"

Lasky wringed his hands in defeat at the Doctor's sheer persistence (in no small part due to his OGI connections too) and said "We'll send in a Grade-3 Probe, Ablative Coating, Thermal Dispersers, Gravitational Dampeners, the works. If by any chance, your predictions are wrong Doctor, the Probe will not be detected and could give us some valuable insight on the workings of the ships of this species. Though there is a chance that the Relay displays a new entrance/exit with very vibrant visual works which defeats the purpose of a Grade-3 Probe entirely. But as they say, a precaution is better than a cure. Especially if the only cure is several dozen NOVA bombs."

Malashenko nodded, mentally sighing at this victory, though he knew that the Admiral had no real say in the launching of the probe but could slow down the timestamp accorded to this mission considerably.

Lasky relayed the order to deploy a Grade-3 probe from one of the OGI-prowlers to his Deputy Commander Stewart McKinley. Stewart was a good man and more importantly, a competent officer who could take over as an emergency captain of The Shaw if Lasky ever suffered a fatality in action. The Probe was released from the cargo hold of the Prowler named 'Spectre'. The instructions on how to access a relay were simple; one simply had to upload the Probe's mass to the relay before it was transported.

With a UNSC AI at the helm of the Relay controls, the process was further simplified hundredfold. The Probe approached with the man at the helm of probe control signalling "Probe approaching relay in 5, 4, 3…" Lasky was still uneasy, afraid they had unleashed something which would have been better left untouched. "….2, 1." The Probe accelerated towards the relay when a tendril arced from the Blue Core of the Relay and connected with the Probe causing the probe to drop out of all local area scanners and a bright azure streak to appear parallel to the Relay.

 **System ARC-1080, 1349 Light Years away from the current position of The Shaw.**

 **The Probe's Video feed.** **Sergeant George Hamilton at the controls.**

The Sergeant spotted nothing at first, his screen being nothing but black (The UNSC had eliminated Static for northwards of 200 years in official military communications). The Probe quickly ran a diagnostic check and found itself to be in optimal working condition. All that happened was very minute frictional damage which could be undergone more than a million times before the Probe would be in 90% of its full operational capacity and therefore due for recalibration and retrofitting.

George activated the Probe's stealth mode which included turning it visually indistinguishable from the space around it and activating all of its sensor disruptors. He began a wide-area scan with the Probe. The results came in a matter of nanoseconds though they could only be processed so fast by a non-enhanced human. There were 4 planets in the system orbiting a Red star.

The second planet from the star seemed to have once possessed suitable conditions for life. It was probably once a verdant world but now desolate, dotted with the spires and arches of what must be once-magnificent cities. It has been devastated by means unknown, its entire surface changed to the colour of rust. The atmosphere shows heightened levels of oxygen. Wildfires, presumably ignited by lightning strikes, can be seen burning on the dark side. This indicates that most - if not all - respiration driven animal life forms have died off. Surface gravity of the planet came back at a comfortable 1.17 standard G's. George groaned softly in pity and empathy for this race, no doubt now extinct.

While humanity had managed to avert a complete destruction of the planet through nuclear war and had advanced extremely well, the same could not be said of this planet. Whether mere territorial expansion or international war was the cause for this destruction or alien invasion, it was heart wrenching all the same.

There seemed to be another relay based on the gravitational readings that the Probe was giving out, possibly one of those secondary relays the UNSC owned relay's databanks had told them about. There was a singular gas giant in the system, 1.5 times as dense as Jupiter and 1.125 times larger than it. What interested George was that there seemed to be an unusually-cuboidal amalgamation of metal in the atmosphere of the gas-giant which also seemed slightly deformed. He relayed this information to Roland.

Roland said "Well, it seems to be cuboidal doesn't it? And it's deformed….. Well it's probably a space station which initially was revolving around the gas giant which eventually lost power after centuries or millennia of disuse and was attracted to the giant due to its immense pull and was absorbed. It must be at least as resilient as Titanium A2 to survive this long.

We'll send an extraction team to pull out the Station and extract any worthwhile information on any servers present inside. Good Job, George, you'll be needed when Malashenko decides to send the probe through that secondary relay soon after we manage to decrypt any information found on that station. It'll probably take two days, so rest up. We'll definitely send in several research teams onto that planet."

Roland shuddered "We'll try to find out what exactly happened to its original inhabitants and… hope not to replicate their mistakes. I'm glad this didn't happen to humanity because such a problem would be amplified through your species' sheer ingenuity and will to survive. Humans who managed to survive on such an Earth would be driven into the Palaeolithic age, reduced to mindless war for whatever food resources might be left."

George nodded and set the probe onto a long-range revolution orbit around the Star. When it had successfully entered its orbit he deactivated its thrusters and proceeded to log off from the controller. Based on calculations it would reach the secondary relay in a matter of two days as was the timeframe handed to him by Roland. He could always take control of it when the second part of the mission began. He knew he wouldn't sleep properly for several days now; the sight of that deserted planet had shaken him to the core. It made him wish he had time-manipulation powers, to right all the wrongs that had been done on the planet.

 **Shuttle Bay- 6, Spartan-III Fire Team 'Skorpion'**

 **Lieutenant Adrian Whitley**

Not 2 hours previously had the rest of the fleet moved into this system using slipspace as Admiral Lasky had deemed Relay travel too risky for utilization by a ship larger than the goddamn relay itself when Lieutenant Adrian Whitley had received orders from Spartan Commander Sarah Palmer to report to the Shuttle Bay along with the rest of his squad.

Lieutenant Adrian made his way to Insertion Shuttle 12 with the rest of his squad in tow. They had been called on by Admiral Lasky for a retrieval mission in high-pressure-in-atmo conditions on a gas giant which necessitated the usage of the sustainable-thruster module for their MJOLNIR Armour which gave them flight due to its raw power compared to the short bursts utilized by the Kinetic Lateral Thrusters present in joints of the MJOLNIR utilized in Quick-Time Combat Situations. They were going to be debriefed while in shuttle transit so as to not waste time.

They made their way in after the flight deck crew nodded and began the process of allowing them access into the shuttle's cabin through a combination of retina scanners, fingerprint scanners with inbuilt pulse detectors so as to not allow anyone whose finger had been cut off to be used to fool the fingerprint scanner, DNA scanners (DNA taken from an area separate from the hand), tag scanner and a beta wave detector to ensure no knocked out management personnel could be used in a theft/defection/desertion attempt by any soldier.

While the management personnel was completing all of these scans, Sergeant Vance Nixon, the squad's demolition expert groaned to Gunnery Sergeant Ashley Williams "I know that the chance of Insurrection moles being present among us somewhat makes all these stringent security measures justified but don't you think this is a bit overboard? Next they'll have some sort of mass detector and a scanner which'll detect a person's unique gravitational signature and who knows what else. It'll all depend on what those eggheads over at Sector-5 **(Weapons Development** ) manage to dream up."

Ashley sniggered, Vance was always on the impatient side ever since that day he'd been fleeced by 7 pickpockets on their shore leave in Cairo where the squad had stopped to have some drinks and Vance, a man who thoroughly detested alcohol was forced to go outside and roam for 3 hours as in his own words "He couldn't even stand the smell of alcohol. He'd rather jump into the ocean and begin procreating with elephant seals then even have a whiff of that blasted thing them people called alcohol."

Adrian grinned on the inside, but ever the model captain said "Can it Sergeant, I didn't give you permission to speak. The next time you speak without my permission I'll have you removed from my team and transferred to Team Cobra in the Cairo Garrison. I hear they're short a guy who can mindlessly blow up stuff."

It was an empty threat however, Adrian and Vance had been best friends for the better part of 20 years and Adrian would not dream of sending Vance away even if it in some ridiculous scenario would somehow contribute to saving his own life. It was still enough to make Vance shudder and stop speaking completely.

The door of the pod finally opened and they stepped inside. The pilot began the deployment procedure which was completed in a matter of 5 seconds. They began traversing the distance between the Shaw and the target planet. The on-board Dumb AI calculated the estimated time for arrival to be 10 minutes as to facilitate the debriefing.

Admiral Lasky appeared on the video-con. "Gentlemen, your mission here is to retrieve any technology and all data servers on-board a defunct space station which has plummeted into this gas giant and based on Roland's calcs on its structural damage has stayed there for well over several millennia. You'll be looking for any sort of data: star charts, resource clusters, a local area map, weaponry and if the station possesses an on-board AI, you will retrieve it. Well that's all there is to it.

And remember, this is alien tech, be extremely careful not to activate any sort of data charge which might alert the extra-terrestrial originators of this technology. There's a slim chance that this station's technology is not related to the species which once thrived on that planet over there and might actually be an espionage-oriented space station of an invading species. You will also attach gravitational winches to the station after your search so it can be hauled out using one of the Heavy Cruisers and sent over to OGI research facilities for reverse engineering."

The captain nodded and Admiral Lasky's image upon the screen flickered away. "Well squad, you heard the boss. Vance try not to do anything clumsy ya big goof and don't blow up stuff either. The same goes for you Franklin." Specialist Franklin Bertrand turned a shade of pink not unlike the Martian Beetroots he was especially fond of. Specialist Maria Bertrand, the fire team's close range weapons specialist chuckled at this joke at her brother's expense. She was gifted at using shotguns but her true specialization was the usage of High-Frequency Vibration blades. She could cut swathes through several dozen ODSTs with her blades if put to it as she had done in simulations before. She moved like the blades were merely extensions of her limbs and not separate tools. If Death wanted to take you in an extremely gory and violent form it would inhabit Maria's 'arms'.

Franklin was the team's resident long range weapons specialist who handled weapons designed to be used in distances above a couple of miles such as the 4 Standard UNSC issue Sniper Rifles, the 2 Spartan Laser Varieties, handheld mortars and anti-tank weapons. He was also the group's designated Tactical Aid Designator which included calling in Cluster Bombs, Bunker Busters, Precision Artillery and Neo-Napalm Strikes along with the occasional Armour-Shredders from a B-43 'War-hog', the spiritual successor of the 21st century A-10 'Warthog'.

The pilot announced "We've arrived at the exfil point guys, I'll seal off the pilot's compartment and then you can jump out now. We wouldn't me to die of depressurization now, would we?"

Saying so the young man sealed the pilot's cabin off which resulted in Vance chuckling. Vance said "Alright, helmets on and all you AIs begin plotting the pathway to this station. You'll control the thrusters." Ashley said "That won't be necessary Captain; you know how a girl adores these rare chances to be able to fly." Vance chuckled and said "Alright Ashley, it's your funeral, and it won't be amiss if Caitlyn gets mad at you for this too."

Everyone of Team 'Skorpion' wore their helmets and Adrian pressed the button which would open the door. The Dumb AI ran a few scans in a matter of nanoseconds on whether all Spartans had worn their helmets and if the pilot's compartment was sealed off. When the results came back in the affirmative, the door opened. All of them exited with their KLT's righting them as soon as they were free from the artificial micro-gravity of the shuttle. Vance said "Last one to the station is paying at Berty's" and promptly accelerated to MACH 1.

Ashley squawked in surprise before activating her thrusters and chasing after him too. Adrian, Franklin and Maria accelerated to MACH 0.83 flying in uniform pattern just so as to be able to provide covering fire in case the station had on board defensive measures. Adrian grinned internally for all of Vance's playfulness he was an excellent soldier at heart and would stop short at 20 or so kilometres away from the object so as to allow them to form a proper plan in their means of entry. Until then, Adrian was happy to let him roam free.

After 10 minutes of this monotonous travel, Adrian said "Vance, Ashley, hold position, we will accelerate towards you at MACH 2 and then we will proceed to travel to the station at MACH 1.5 so as to maintain a decent timeframe."

Vance and Ashley were 68 kilometres and 67 kilometres away from the initial deployment position respectively which was 11 and 10 kilometres respectively from the positions of the rest of the group and still 700 or so kilometres away from the station. It would take roughly 15 seconds at MACH 2 to traverse 10 kilometres. During these fifteen seconds while Vance and Ashley had halted, Adrian consulted his AI Orion for a long-range scan of the station so they would have a framework blueprint for an entry. The rest of the team had arrived by then. There were 768 kilometres between their current position and the space station. At Mach 1.5 the distance of 768 kilometres could be traversed in roughly 25 minutes, more than enough time to formulate a plan of entry.

"Alright Team, here's how we're gonna proceed: Orion's scans reveal there are two main airlocks, located parallel to one another on each relatively horizontal surface of the station. We know its horizontal due to Orion's X-Ray scans which revealed the position of any fixed dispensaries or such. Maria and Vance, you take the airlock which has a communication antenna protruding from its side while Ashley and I take the other one. Franklin, you'll be providing external cover and attaching the gravity winches to the station's six load-bearing points at a time interval of 7 minutes each."

He paused to catch his breath.

"The station still seems to be producing artificial gravity completely different from our UNSC A-G or like the 23rd Century centrifugal force driven artificial gravity. There seems to be an artificial gravity generator producing a gravitational field not unlike that Relay thing but obviously on a much smaller scale which draws objects towards it. There's no saying what it'll do to our suit systems but Orion says that the chance of this different sort of artificial gravity affecting us to be lesser than a billion, let's hope he's right. I'll activate the Safety-net shield set for a radius of say…. 65 metres just to provide enough leeway for Franklin to move around while the BO-23 Boarding Insertor does its job on both airlocks."

 _They were set to approach the station in 60 seconds._

"Begin decelerating right now! That goes for you too Vance, no more fancy flying."

All members of Team Skorpion complied, crawling to a halt before the station was finally visible. It was old indeed, definitely showing millennia of rough wear and tear but it still endured, semi-eternal, the last remainder of its creator species.

When Adrian activated the Safety-net, it enclosed the entire structure which ensured that the gas giant's high intensity winds did not damage the interior of the ship when the Spartans entered it. Adrian and Ashley positioned themselves on the Airlock that Adrian has assigned to them. When Vance radioed in that he and Maria were on the other airlock. Adrian said "Insert the BO-23s in: 3."

"2"

"1"

Adrian and Vance jammed the BO-23 into the airlock doors with all of their SPARTAN III strength not sure what sort of resistance the doors would offer. It was slight overkill as the doors were meant to handle meteoric collisions which hit with the force of a charging bull elephant or so, not exertions of any sort of SPARTANs.

The BO-23's micro-scanners inside its piercing end measure the dimensions of the door before making laser incisions which slice the door hinges and made the door or in case of a ship based incursion, make the armour plating fall over. * **Note : Useless against Valiant Classes *** At the very same instant its second stage, that is, the one that faces the boarding party expands and makes bubble shield 3 metres in diameter which keeps out the physical aspects of the outside world and stops it from damaging the interior of the target ship.

In this case it was redundant due to the pre-existing Safety-net bubble, but it is always good to possess a backup shielding method. The BO-23s shield allows a one way entry, that is, objects from the outside i.e. the side of the boarding party including projectiles and boarders can enter it freely while any object from the inside cannot breach it with anything short of the force possessed by multi-kiloton level weapons.

All this is whisper silent too, so it is near impossible for a boarding to be detected based on ship-board directional microphones or vibration detectors. Though the heavy footsteps of Marine boots landing on metallic surfaces defeats this purpose anyway.

The doors of both the airlocks fell backward with Ashley and Maria pushing it out of their paths respectively. The two squads forced themselves in. Adrian was greeted with what was evidently the data centre of the ship which no doubt contained sensor readings and such; Vance wasn't so lucky and was knocked on the head by what must have once been a mobile medical dispensary which was now defunct and constantly spouting some alien words in a constant loop based on how they sounded.

It took both Maria's AI Gosling and Vance's AI Artemis' combined processing power to decode the language in 3 seconds being as they were, 6th generation AIs unlike Roland.

They forwarded the decoded language to Adrian so he could sync with the device and upload directly translated files from the data centre to his Suit Storage Systems. Adrian sifted through the zettabytes of data on the ship which was mostly useless environmental readings lasting thousands of years of it being in this gas giant's pressurizations. He trawled back, to over a hundred thousand years ago, 111,648 years to be precise.

What he saw frankly disturbed him. It was a video-message in which an alien with many tentacle-like appendages on his skull who was clutching a rifle or a gun which looked very much like an UNSC rifle and constantly looking towards the doors. The alien was saying some words in his own language which were being automatically translated and transmitted to the entire team by Orion. "To any species out there who come across this message, we, the Inusannon here on Ilos fight our final battle with the machine gods. They slaughtered our colonies and have pushed us back to this world, our homeworld long gone.

This is our last stronghold and we will not let these machines destroy it. As I speak, our soldiers die by the thousands and the last ship of our fleet has just been destroyed. The Giant Machines only arrived here as 2 and destroyed the last three thousands of our once mighty Imperial Fleet. They were Jet Black, almost blending in with space." He paused, holding his fingers to his ears and listening to something being transmitted to him. He sighed and started sobbing and continued

"The Emperor has authorized the usage of our experimental neutronium bombs which have an extremely high yield of several teratons worth of what we utilized as conventional explosives several centuries ago. We only have 2 and we hope that's enough to destroy these monstrosities.

But neutronium is completely cataclysmic to Ilos' ecosystem as we realized from a failed neutronium experiment from three hundred years ago which resulted in a massive hole in the atmosphere over the Southern Continent." He paused to catch his breath and continued:

"We imagine that it will cause all our water to evaporate over time and we will die regardless due to the atmospheric voids if not due to the initial explosion. I am transferring all these files to our old space station on Bolos, the Gas Giant in our system and signalling it to meticulously crash itself into Bolos so these machines cannot dispose of our final moments and in such a way that it preserves itself."

The alien began pressing several complex key combinations on a workbench near him when the reinforced door barricading him from the invasion force started folding upon itself due to the sheer impact blows of whatever was outside. He finished his last keystrokes and said "That's it, after these final words of mine, my interface will finish transferring the files and then the bombs will detonate. To whichever species finds this, I hope you have the technology to take on whatever these machines are. The spirit of the Inusannon is with you. Hail Friend! We hope we are remembered for our sacrifice."

The metal portal finally crumbled and the scientist turned around. He fired the projectiles from his weapon which seemed to be some sort of accelerated plasma. The hulking monstrosity that was outside was a techno abomination. It squeezed itself in and Adrian saw its disgusting face. It seemed to be a very crude amalgamation of metallic and biological components. It seemed to be a fusion of several bodies of these Inusannon with an unknown metal. It was no doubt a Brute soldier for these 'machine gods' which was created through some form of incorporation of Inusannon bio-matter and machine indoctrination techniques.

Even in the face of hopelessness of such magnitude, the scientist held his ground and continued to pump round after round into the thing's putrescent face. The thing wasn't even affected and kept advancing. It snagged the scientist with its tentacles by the neck and snatched away the weapon and broke it in half. Adrian couldn't help but feel admiration for this scientist who no doubt had never received military training and yet was showing the abomination what an Inusannon was capable of. The scientist kept head-butting or rather trying to head-butt the thing but in vain.

He grabbed a knife sheathed near his sides and drove it into the sensors which effectively acted as the thing's eyes. It screamed in its rough, metallic, robotic imitation of a cry of pain. It squeezed the scientist's neck so hard it snapped with a very audible crack. But the true victor of this battle had been the scientist as his mission was complete. Adrian could still see the steely determination which lingered in the scientist's dead eyes. The camera cut off when the entire complex began to shake, no doubt due to the explosion. Since there were still remains of Inusannon culture on the planet Ilos, there was no doubt about who had been the victor of the battle though at such a pyrrhic cost it was as well as the worst defeat ever.

Adrian silently blinked back tears, along with the rest of his team. Only Franklin was unmoved as he hadn't received the file. Adrian would petition the UHG to construct a memorial to the Inusannon on Alpha Centauri. They clearly deserved it. There was silence for several seconds, infact for two minutes or so. Adrian managed to gather himself and eventually asked Franklin "Fr… Franklin, how many gravity winches have you attached to the station?"

Franklin, still oblivious of the situation said "I'm nearly done with the 3rd one; you should get out of there soon enough. What's the situation in there though? Found anything useful?" Adrian forwarded the Inusannon's video file containing the unnamed hero's final stand to Franklin, who watched it for its duration of 8 minutes while finishing off the 3rd and 4th gravity winch. He stood, floated rather, completely still, thoroughly shell-shocked at what he had just witnessed. He blinked back a couple of tears. There were no words which came to him to describe what he had just seen; none of them had any words for the event. Franklin floated stilly, shellshocked by what he had witnessed for another 15 seconds or so before finally beginning work upon the 5th winch.

Adrian spoke into his com-system "Vance, Take samples of what that medical dispensary is dispensing, that medical technology could be invaluable to humankind. Have Artemis take a scan of the machine's workings. Maria, scout around and see if there's anything else left lying around there."

He said to Ashley "Ashley, trawl through the secondary data servers for any star charts and the like so we can investigate other Inusannon colonies with Caitlyn. Also see if there's anything related to their technology in there. Those would probably be the ones which are the oldest, surpassing a hundred thousand years and therefore relegated to the secondary data servers. I'll comb through the main servers to see if those bloodthirsty monstrosities ever returned to the system and decided to assault what remains of Ilos to stamp out their failure. It isn't likely though, we saw those cities on the planet earlier." They all worked in silence when Maria announced "I think I've found some sort of data chip. It was enclosed in a quantum crystal of sorts. Gosling is interacting with it right now."

Adrian waited for her response when Ashley said "I've taken all relevant files from the system. I used Roland's data cluster elimination method to find the oldest files which were technologically laden. There's quite a lot of stuff here. Most outdated by our standards, but some of what we have here could have some form of usage. And then there's this weird file about an 'Element Zero' which seems to be the primary catalyst for most of their technologies. It could have seriously kickstarted their growth but also dampened any creativity."

Adrian said "What do you mean?"

"No doubt this Element Zero could have made it significantly easier to make a framework on which to build starcraft and such on, but the same ease would have made it nigh impossible to create anything independent from it and hence made them slaves to only those methods and any and all limitations this Element Zero possesses."

Gosling said on the topic of the data crystal which was forgotten for the moment "It seems to be a primitive AI of sorts, but certainly smarter than any dumb AI we use. Its specs seem to suggest it needs certain specific conditions to come out of its 'hibernation-phase'. It pinged me once, but it wasn't of its own volition, it was an automated response derived from a back-up subroutine and states that this AI was once the personal 'battle-companion' of the War-Marshal who seems to have been the wartime commander of all forces of the Inusannon in the war against these 'gods'. The AI clearly possess direct knowledge of all events that transpired.

Adrian mulled these observations for a couple of minutes, giving it only cursory attention out of piqued interest, not being a philosopher or a scientist and then radioed command as soon as they exited the ship along with the data crystal and any physical materials which were deemed utilizable by analysis. "We're done here, Command. We'll be exfiltrating in 5 seconds. Get the tug boat ready."

"Roger that Adrian."

Saying these words, the entirety of Team Skorpion blasted off heading back to their ship and in turn to the real goddamn Mother Ship, The Shaw.

 **The Shaw's Command Platform**

 **Admiral Lasky**

"Well Malashenko, it looks like my fears were unfound after all, or maybe not, but the scenario is that for now we are safe. Research teams will be dispatched to 'Ilos' as the nat….former natives called it. One day we may even terraform Ilos; make it a… memorial of sorts? Maybe just patch up all their work and put an automated ODP in the atmosphere so if anyone with intentions like whatever those machine gods were comes they take a teratons slug to the goddamn face. Maybe we'll branch out into other systems, see what we can find. We will however, definitely step up our military workhorse, these 'machine gods', just 2 of them were said to slaughter thousands of Ilos' fleet, which, while we're not sure where that puts them in comparison with us but makes them a threat we cannot treat lightly in anyway or form"

The doctor nodded his head, half listening, only pondering what his own trawling through the data from the CHA-80N relay had told him about, how there were a series of Relays in active usage by a species or maybe even a group of species and how they utilized an extremely oversized relay too. This oversized relay seemed to have an extreme range too, far too much in comparison to its lesser brethren. The only reason he'd caught it was the extreme scale of the integer mentioned for this uber-relay's range which his eyes had caught by chance, far outstripping any of its brethren in terms of range.

"Doctor, you here?"

"Uh, Yes Comrade Lasky, just pondering about these series of incidents myself, I'd like to point out something Roland might not have picked up yet, busy as he is in micromanaging what I imagine are that hundreds of problems the newly defrosted relay might be undergoing."

Roland piped in "Would that by chance be that relay with that fucking humongous range? More than a hundred thousand light years blimey, I wonder what the hell's on the other end. No data of that is available for access from this relay; we'll need direct access from that giant relay, but good news is that this relay hasn't been activated in roughly 50000 years or so unless the data available on this relay's servers are faulty and outdated."

Lasky took a deep breath and said "High command will take care of that later, maybe even send an expeditionary force, though chances of that look extremely thin due to these 'machine gods' that might prowl the space between relays and other related problems, heck there might be a black hole in a relay exit but we wouldn't know that. And some relays might even be death traps, if they explode due to hundreds of millennia of disuse and become a singularity or such it definitely would not be good, more like terrible to be honest. So what would be likely is to slipspace into systems with such relays which would seem to be most relays near us."

With that out of the way, Lasky exhaled a sigh of incomplete relief, knowing though that there were no enemies in the general vicinity, there was a strong possible the eggheads higher up might just push for further exploration which would be a tactical nightmare in itself.

 **The Citadel**

 **Relay Monitoring Chamber**

The Turian Technician on duty, Coris Kyius, was notified by the VI with the customary blaring sounds and blinking orange lights that a relay had been activated that should not have been. He swivelled his chair around and approached the console rapidly, what he was greeted with was a jarring cacophony resulting from the protocol that had been added if any of the so-called 'legendary' relays were activated. He was completed shell-shocked as he was notified that it was the Mu Relay, lost thousands of years ago which was said to be activated along with a couple of deep space relays termed CHA-80N and ARC-1080. He quickly began scanning all the data that had been compiled and rapidly created a report to send directly to The Councillors.


End file.
